The present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for editing a moving image used for the production of moving images in television broadcasting programs, video programs, and the like.
Computer-aided sophisticated functions are rapidly developed for producing television broadcasting programs and video programs. Particularly, recently developed moving image editing apparatuses edit video information by storing it in an inexpensive, easy-to-handle, and easy-to-store, randomly-accessible storage unit such as a hard disk, instead of using video tape recorders in which video information is edited by repeating fast-forward and rewind operations again and again with the tape counter. The xe2x80x9cvideo informationxe2x80x9d herein used means all video information including audio signals.
Image data that constitutes a moving image recorded in a magnetic storage device or the like can be defined as a collection of cuts and scenes. The xe2x80x9ccutxe2x80x9d can be defined as a set of frame images photographed between the start and end of a single photographing operation using a TV camera. The xe2x80x9cscenexe2x80x9d can be defined as a set of cuts in which a predetermined object is photographed. A plurality of scenes can be grouped into a specific photographic theme. Such moving image data can be organized in the form of a hierarchical structure including combinations of cuts and scenes. While a recording medium such as magnetic tape stores frame image data chronologically, a magnetic disk or an optical disk stores image data not necessarily chronologically, but in a different order, and these disk-type recording media are advantageous in that it takes almost the same time to access any video data contained therein.
A computer-aided moving image editing system provides various techniques that facilitate editing operation. For example, representative images representing the cuts and scenes that constitute a moving image to be edited are stored in a storage unit in the form of reduced still images. The representative images are displayed on a screen chronologically. Such a display facilitates an operator to check the reduced still images and select an image he wishes to edit. Such a display also allows the operator to manage the image data on a cut or a scene basis.
Each representative image is a still image reduced to, e.g., about 80xc3x9760 pixels by thinning the pixels of an NTSC frame image consisting of, e.g., 640xc3x97480 pixels. Such reduced still image is called an xe2x80x9cM-icon.xe2x80x9d The M-icon according to the present invention can be prepared not only from NTSC frame images but also from other TV system moving image data. The number of pixels of an M-icon is not limited to 80xc3x9760, either.
The object of the present invention is to provide a method and an apparatus for editing a moving image and a recording medium for storing a procedure of the editing method, which method and apparatus allows an operator to detect a desired representative M-icon from a plurality of M-icons displayed on an editing screen quickly and easily and to specify the detected M-icon.
A first aspect of the present invention provides a method of editing a moving image comprising the steps of: displaying a plurality of representative images by arranging the representative images on a screen of a display device, each representative image representing a specific frame image which an operator requires for example, among a plurality of serial frame images constituting the moving image; detecting a feature of video data of the moving image or of the representative images based on the video data; and displaying the representative images on the screen in a manner different from the arrangement or display mode of the representative images defined in the first displaying step based on the detected feature.
A second aspect of the present invention provides an apparatus for editing a moving image comprising: an input unit for allowing an operator to enter an instruction; a storage unit for storing data of a plurality of serial frame images constituting the moving image and video data of a representative image representing a specific piece of frame image data; a display unit for displaying an edited result on a screen; and a control unit for receiving the instruction from the input device, executing a predetermined editing process and outputting the edited result to the display unit. The control unit includes: means for reading video data of a plurality of representative images from the storage unit and arranging the read video data on a screen of the display unit in a first display mode; means for detecting a feature of video data of the moving image or of the representative images based on the video data; and means for arranging the representative images on the screen of the display unit in a second display mode that is different from the first display mode based on the detected feature.
A third aspect of the present invention provides a recording medium that stores a procedure of the editing method of the invention in a computer readable code.